


Back to a Frozen Future

by kalikoke



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Time Travel, back to the future - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-22
Updated: 2015-07-17
Packaged: 2018-03-08 15:37:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3214469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalikoke/pseuds/kalikoke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The "road" trip Anna's older sister surprised her with wasn't quite what she expected. Inspired heavily by the Back to the Future trilogy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Prologue**

Hurtling through time and space was not, Anna mused, what she had imagined when she suggested that she, her older sister Elsa, and her boyfriend Kristoff go on road trip to “bond as a family and have lots of adventures and stuff!”

But now, even as she sat in the cramped front seat of her sister’s car, trying hard not to wake Kristoff from the deep slumber he’d succumbed to, she knew this was even better than what she ever dreamt of doing as a family adventure.

She looked at her muttering, frustrated sister whose death grip on the steering wheel turned her knuckles bone-white.

The whole “fighting evil ex’s minions” thing, though, she could have done without, even if she finally was able to put her Tae Kwon Do skills to use.


	2. Sarcastic, Secretive, Silent, Stinker Sisters

It was the absence of any comment, not even a teasing one directed at Anna, or a sarcastic quip about one of Kristoff’s anecdotes, that signaled to the young couple that there were strange circumstances afoot regarding Anna’s older sister Elsa.

This particular young woman, though often caught in a daze of intense thought (about what, Anna was unsure), was not known to pass up the opportunity to deliver a sarcastic, witty response. Even during the Incident from years past, she had never been known to spare Anna of the gentle teasing comments older sisters tend to make.

It was the sly grin on her face that betrayed the elder.

“What do you mean, _am I plotting something_?” she responded with a smirk at Anna’s question. Was that, Anna noted, a glint suggesting mischief shining faintly in the eyes of her secretive sister?

“You know what I mean, Elsa. You even have that _mad scientist_ grin thing you do when you…do things.” Anna flailed her arms to demonstrate, nearly knocking over the tray a passing waiter carried. He recovered at a moment’s notice, but made a mental note to avoid the proximity in which the redhead sat.

“ _Do things_ , Anna?” said Kristoff disapprovingly, his eyebrow raised as he looked at his more-than-a-friend.

“You know what I mean,” Anna breathed out, feeling increasingly more exasperated as they sat at that booth.

Kristoff, being privy to the kind of unspoken communication to which the elder sister was prone, glanced at Elsa, then sat back with a bemused smile on his face.

“ _Okay_ , you two. What’s going on here?” Anna glared at them both in a look (she hoped) that indicated her suspicion.

“You know that road trip you won’t shut up about?” Kristoff smirked.

“Wuh–what do you mean, _won’t shut up about_ , Kristoff?” she put her fists at her hips, mimicking the stern pose she had often seen her teachers make whenever she did something they considered improper.

“Anna,” Elsa chuckled, “you’ve been on about since you first brought it up…six months ago.”

Kristoff snickered.

“Okay, but…what about it?”

Elsa, the stinker that she was, merely smirked in response.

 

“Anna, I’m going by myself, and that is _final_.”

“But Elsa!” responded the _other_ stubborn sister.

“And _please_ don’t run after me this time. _Please_.”

“But-”

“Anna, _please_. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

The way Elsa was acting, one would have thought she had some sort of shady dealings with certain foreign agents to obtain illegal nuclear substances.

“Fine…Wait, what? What do you mean ‘get hurt’? Where are you going? Is it safe? Will _you_ be safe? You know I know Tae Kwon Do, and I took Kend too, remember? I can totally help fight off any goons you might–”

“Please, Anna. _Just stay here_. I’m just going to meet with some…er, ‘friends’”, Elsa narrowed her eyes, “to..negotiate over some, uh, _important_ , er, deals? Deals. Yes, that’s it. I’m having some meetings. You know. ”

“Okay…I really hope you’re not making shady deals with foreign agents to get like, plutonium or something.”

Elsa’s eyes widened, her mouth slightly agape.

“I-I-I have to go.” Then she turned from Anna, not looking back once as she sped off in her clunky car from the ’80s or whatever time period it was. Anna always thought her sister was some kind of car hipster because of it.

She briefly considered hopping on her skateboard and chasing after her stubborn, secretive, and totally a stinker sister, but knew that even she, a veritable speed demon, couldn’t catch up to the speedier (for now) sister.

 

“We _have_ to go after her, Kristoff.” Anna was walking several steps apace of Kristoff, making deliberate, forceful steps as she moved.

“Anna, we’ve been through this. I’m sure Elsa’s alright. She’s twenty-four, not four. I’m sure she can look after herself.”

While he didn’t quite believe everything he was saying, the desperate look on his girlfriend’s face told him he ought to try to reassure her. That’s what good couples do, right? Right?

Sure, it was already a day and a half past the date Elsa was supposed to have come back, but surely, she wouldn’t have sent them a voicemail just that morning if she was in danger? Right?

And surely he was doing what good friends were supposed to do when they were going to surprise their friend’s younger sister with a family vacation/road trip across the land, right?

“And besides, she’s like, what? Three years older than you.” He waved his hands around, as if to emphasize his point. “Elsa’s supposed to be the overprotective one, feisty pants, not you.”

He had caught up to her at last, then gave her a faint smile.

Anna sighed as he stood beside her. He wrapped his arms around her, her head leaning instinctively towards his shoulder. He leaned his head to meet hers.

“I’m just a little worried, Kristoff….remember the _last time_ Elsa disappeared by herself?” Anna frowned.

“Yeah but…but,” Kristoff rubbed his neck, “she gave warning this time?” His voice crackled, then his lips formed into a nervous grin as Anna separated herself and stood away from him, glaring.

Suddenly, something skidded past them, nearly colliding with a neighbor’s car.

The grey DeLorean suddenly lurched backwards near the couple whose afternoon walk had suddenly been interrupted.

“GET IN!” Elsa shouted frantically. “BOTH OF YOU! NOW!”


	3. Opening the Doors to Hyperspace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Frohana crew are crammed into a car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update. Let's just say I could use a time traveling device myself.

The doors hissed when they swung up, revealing the elder Andersen sister struggling to slow the pace of her breathing, her hands clasped tightly around the handles of the steering wheel. 

The first thing Anna noticed when she peered into the car wasn’t that Elsa was wearing a completely opaque pair of glasses that looked like they were made from one sheet of metal (how could she even see in those things?), or that she was wearing two large yellow rubber gloves as she grasped at the handles of the steering wheel. Because that wasn’t all totally weird to begin with.

Or even that she was wearing a white lab coat over one of her many plaid shirts (not that such an outfit was out of the ordinary for her older sister, who seemed to wear the same combination of collared plaid shirts and slacks every day. _It’s more efficient this way_ , she remembered Elsa saying when she had asked her about her repetitive choice of clothing).

It was the machinery that had been added in the back of the DeLorean, a nest of wires and tubes that glowed a phosphorescent blue even in the light of day, that made Anna freeze in wonder and confusion. What the _hell_ did her sister do to her car?

“Elsa! Where—what—“ Anna sputtered out loudly. “Where have you—w-w-hat did you-How do you—how do you even _see_ in those things?”

Elsa released her grip on the wheel then placed her shaking hands, palms down, at her thighs. She muttered something to herself, her chest rising as she inhaled. After a few moments, her hands stilled. 

“I’ll explain in a bit,” she said with an even voice, “just get in. Please.”

Spurred by her older sister’s use of what she called the “queenly, regal, commanding” voice, Anna slid into the front seat; Kristoff followed after, barely able to squeeze into the front seat alongside the young woman. 

“You know,” Kristoff grunted, “we could have taken my van.” 

“Oh Kristoff. Your rusty, aging, van,“ Elsa lifted the glinting, opaque shades up to her forehead, turning behind her, ”wouldn’t have and will not survive the two point nine-nine-seven times ten to the eight meters per second speed,“ she said flatly as she fumbled with some wires in the back, ”that we need to travel to get through the CTCs."

“The CT…er, what?” Kristoff asked, his left brow raised at what sounded vaguely like an insult at his mode of transport. 

Anna watched as her sister closed a circuit in the back and turn a switch near a large metal enclosure that held three glass tubes of equal length. Another switch turned, then a viscous, blue substance slithered into the tubes.

With a slight smirk on her face, Elsa turned back towards the dashboard. “There.” She placed the metal shades back at eye level.

“So what are you talking about, exactly?” Kristoff asked again.

“Sorry, what?” The metal shades glinted in the sun as Elsa turned to face the other two. “Oh. Right. You know, CTCs?” she cocked her head, then waited for a response. Hearing none (and seeing only befuddled expressions on the other two’s faces), she continued, “Closed time-like curves?”

“No…?” he answered back. “Wait,” he blinked rapidly, “what-I don’t even-huh…”

“I _really_ don’t have time to explain this right now,” Elsa muttered. 

Anna shook her head, then blinked at the three panels on the dashboard. Were those dates displayed on each panel, with the topmost one showing a year twenty years into the future, she wondered.

“Hoo-kay then…I’m gonna pretend, for all of us, that you’re totally not being weird right now, Elsa…" Anna watched as her sister turned back towards the steering wheel, placing the grey shades back at eye level. “So I’m just gonna ask right now…what the heck is going on exactly?”

“Yeah,” Kristoff added once he stopped sputtering in confusion, “I…I thought we were going on a road trip, you know, to surprise Anna?”

"Road…” Anna glanced at him, momentarily taken aback, “…trip?”

“This isn’t,“ Elsa shook her head, then made a noise. ”Ugh. We don’t…“ she grumbled something Anna couldn’t quite make out, but somewhere in that barely audible litany she heard ”capacitor" and something that sounded like a complaint about electrons or whatever it was that her sister geeked out about.

“Anyway. What’s important is that we get to this point in time,“ she tapped on the top panel, ”so we can _stop_ Hans!" Her grip on the steering wheel tightened. 

“Hans?” Kristoff scratched his head. “Wait. _That_ Hans? Anna’s ex?”

The doors swung back into position. The car whirred into life.

“Yes, _that_ Hans,” Elsa sighed, exasperated that the other two couldn’t seem to grasp what she was saying. It’s as though she hadn’t actually told them what had happened. “Weren’t you listening to me? He’s going to let the city freeze over twenty years from now. When he’s elected as mayor.” 

The car began to accelerate away from the curb.

“Okay, first of all, you never said…” Anna paused, "Wait. What do you mean…” Anna growled. “He’s going to be mayor?“ 

“Okay,” Kristoff waved his hands, “hold on a sec. What do you mean he’s going to be mayor when we’re crusty old fortysomethings? And how do you even know this? That’s twenty years into the future, Els.”

“I’ll explain. Later,” her jaw tightened. “For now, just sit back, and enjoy the ride.”


	4. Making Today a Perfect Day...In the Future

Beside the Lake, a city in its bicentennial year rises with the break of dawn. The gloom of winter's past melts with the midsummer air.

To the denizens of Arendelle, it's as if the tough winter from just months before had never happened, and the threats of moving to warmer climes thaws away with every summer day.

The beaches fill up with hordes of sun-bathers, volleyball tournaments, and whatever faddish seasonal game has gone viral this year. Impatient would-be swimmers shiver at their premature splash-land into the Lake's remaining traces of frigidity. A cruel and cold reminder.

"What's that?" A boy points at the sky, rousing his dozing papa from his stupor. In the sky, a small grey spot materializes and widens.

"Oh honey, pay it no mind," the boy's mother responds. "It's just another drone, most likely. Let your father nap, alright?"

The boy nods and returns to the mound of sand that sits beside him. His father resumes his soft snoring, head resting on his arms.

The boy's mother turns back to the sliver in her hands. In its matte screen she watches headlines from the goings-on of Arendelle scroll down and disappear into the sliver's flapping edges. 

LATEST POLL: WESTERGAARD LEADING

BY WIDE MARGIN IN REELECTION BID

* * *

The clouds they pass narrow into streaks of white and then, in just a second, they're in darkness. Was it outer space? Was it a wormhole? Was it the nether regions of the underworld? 

Wherever they were going, it wasn't two hours down south to where they had that weird shiny large steel bean, nor was it up north to Kristoff’s boisterous, sports-loving family. No fried cheese or pizza casseroles to be had where they were traveling, that was for sure.

Anna slides her arms around Kristoff's neck, puts her mouth close to his left ear, and whispers "Kristoff, what the hell is going on?" 

He smiles weakly back at Anna, then whispers, "hey, don't look at me. I was told we were going on a trip as a birthday present to you. This isn't really the kind of 'trip' I was expecting, but with this one over here", he gestures towards Elsa, "I think I've learned to just roll with it."

"Hey, I  heard  that," Elsa chimes in. "I told you. I'll explain when we get there."

“Wait-” Anna gasps. “You-this-Elsa-I-a birthday present? For me?”

She can see Elsa rolling her eyes, or at least, she would be able to if she hadn’t been wearing those ridiculous glasses.

“No, Anna, it’s for the neighbor kid. Of course it’s for you.”

“Yeah, heh, you couldn’t stop talking about going on a road trip that Elsa and I got together and thought, hey, Anna’s birthday is coming up and the rest is, you know, history?” 

Kristoff grins so sheepishly she wanted to kiss him then and there.

“But yeah, this wasn’t what I, uh, expected, exactly,” his voice peters out in a soft croak as he looks nervously at Elsa.

He clears his throat, back straightening. “Speaking of,” he says more confidently, “what’s going on here, Elsa?”

"Wouldn't it be easier to just tell us," Anna pleads, “rather than keeping it in like this?” 

Elsa just sighs and shakes her head.

Why  did  Elsa seem so tight-lipped on what was happening, she wonders. The elder Anderson had already told them as they left their own time that there were Super Dire Things ahead, what with the whole Anna's ex-boyfriend-becoming-politician thing, but that in and of itself wasn't alarming. In fact, it seemed pretty par for the course for Hans Westergaard.

He’d always been Mr. Go-Getter, Sir Gabs-A-Lot-Grab-A-Lot. Oh god, not inthat way. Thank goodness their relationship never went further than that before he revealed himself to be a two-faced, lying, trust-betraying-- where was she going with this?

Anna suspects that there is something Elsa's keeping from them, something she's protecting them from (or so she thinks, ever the martyr), but what it is...she’s not sure.

She bites at her lip and then frowns, considering for a few moments whether to point out her suspicions. Her mouth, as always, gets ahead of her, though, and she blurts out that "there's something else, isn't there?"

Elsa opens her mouth, as if to say something, and it looks like she really wants to reassure them both that there's nothing to be worried about. But then her lips close tight. She shakes her head again like a sad child temporarily rendered mute from the upset.

"Does-does something bad happen to us?" Anna asks so softly it almost comes out a whisper. "Please, Elsa. No more secrets."

Seriously, she thinks. Wasn’t disappearing by herself for a week enough?

"It's, well...Anna, you and Kristoff will be fine." Elsa's grip on the steering wheel tightens, her knuckles paling.

"And you?" Anna adds.

"Me? I..." Elsa still doesn't look at her. "Don't worry about me."

Of course she would say that. Anna sighs; there are secrets standing between her and Elsa, again, but she'll pry it out of her. She will. She had done it before, years ago, when she thought she'd lost her sister forever.

"So what are we-" Kristoff starts, then shields his eyes with his hands.

"What the-" Anna squints ahead.

A burst of light emerges in front, then widens until all the dark is swallowed up by the sky.

Anna spots a smirk forming on the side of her older sister's face.

"There's a reason why I'm wearing these." She taps at the edge of her wraparound glasses with lens so shiny they were practically mirrors. Anna watches the smirk widen on her sister's face. This stinker.

"Oh, so they're not just for," Anna makes air quotes, "'style'?"

Elsa stares back at her sister (or at least, Anna assumes Elsa is staring; she can't see past the opaque metal lenses), looking very much unamused.

"What? I thought it was some weird fashion thing of the future."

"Whoa!" Kristoff exclaims. "Check it out!" He cocks his head for Anna to take a look.

Just beyond the window, they see their city gleaming in the summer sun. They see tiny people moving around and about on the beaches.

The Lake, Anna muses, is no longer a giant ice rink this time of year. Even though she and Elsa had lived in Arendelle since they were kids, it had always seemed a bit of a struggle to imagine that the snow and ice would ever melt.

It didn't help that the chill seemed to linger until late in June, just round Anna's birthday.

But Mama always did say that no matter how endless the days of gloom and freeze seemed to be, they would always pass. And that they did, even when she and Papa had disappeared forever, when it felt like the dark that descended over the Anderson's house would never lift, when Elsa withdrew further into herself in the months after their parents' disappearance.

The tough seasons always changed.

...Or was it that the tough changed with seasons?

...The seasons were tough, so change with it?

“Hey, you okay?” Kristoff nudges. “You’ve been awfully quiet.”

“Huh-wha-” Anna smiles, feeling triumphant anyway. “Oh, yeah,” she chuckles, “I’m just trying to remember this thing that Mama used to say but I couldn’t like, remember whether--anyway, the point is-”

Anna shakes her head and laughs. She'll melt through her sister's secrets. Somehow. Whatever it takes, Anna decides, she'll break through the cold distance Elsa had placed between them. Again. 

She looks out the window, watches people swim and run; she appreciates the way the city appears to glisten in the summer weather, like a showcase of renewed invigoration. "Wow! Arendelle doesn't look so bad when it's not frozen over."

"Yeah, it actually looks liveable when it doesn't feel like you're in Svalbard or something," Kristoff snorts.

Bzzzzzt

A saucer with tiny legs zooms past them. It flies so suddenly it catches Anna off-guard. "Aahhhh!" She jumps a bit in the seat, whacking Kristoff right on the nose. 

"OWWW!"

"Er, sorry," Anna bites her lip, a nervous tick she developed as a teen.

"It's fine," Kristoff mumbles out as he rubs his nose. "I've got a thick nose." 

BZZZZTTTTT

"Okay, seriously! What the heck  was  that??!" Anna looked frantically around, expecting more of the weird saucer things to pass by. "That was like a weird flying spider!"

"It's a quadcopter, you know, a drone," Elsa answers. "They use it for, uh,deliveries these days." 

"Wait, so like owls in Harry Potter?" Kristoff cocked an eyebrow. 

"Uh, you could say that."

"Nice!" Kristoff says with a grin.

"Whoa! That is like," Anna waves her arms excitedly, "really really super cool! And fast!"

"Hey, but wait a minute, aren't you afraid of people spotting us in *this* thing?" Kristoff asks. 

Anna looks around, sees only more sky, then says, "yeah, I don't see any other flying cars or anything around." 

"No, they aren't  quite  commonplace." Elsa sighs.

"Ugh, it's because of the multinational car company complex, isn't it?"

Elsa nods back sadly. "They've stopped it from really happening, all the lobbyists behind them..."

Oh boy, not this discussion again, Anna rolls her eyes. These two had frequently complained about how much inertia there was in transportation technology or whatever. (What kind of nerd uses inertia so casually in a sentence like that anyhow?) Something like that. Not that she didn't agree, but it was tiring to hear the same rants over and over again, even if they were from her two favorite people.

Anna tunes them both out for however long they were ranting this time around, still contemplating about the issue of her sister, when she's finally brought back to earth (okay, thousands of miles above its ground, since they were flying after all) as Elsa clears her throat.

"Alright. I'm going to accelerate, then we’ll slow down kind of suddenly. Make sure you're both holding on," Elsa warns, "We're heading somewhere hidden to regroup."

The DeLorean speeds so fast through the air that Anna can't make out what surrounds them, but she can feel it descend closer and closer to  terra firma.  The engine sputters and the wheels whine against the pavement and they nearly hit a concrete wall before Elsa hits the breaks as fast as she can.

"Well. Here we are," Elsa declares, acting as though traveling through hyperspace and at an altitude several thousand feet above sea level, in a car, was an entirely normal event. She takes the wraparound glasses off, putting them on the dashboard. Then she slides her fingers through her hair, a habit Anna had always assumed was meant to keep her fabulous windblown look intact.

"Sorry about the landing. I..I still have a few rough edges to iron out."

"I'll say." Kristoff rubs his head. He feels a slight ache where his head hit the roof of the car. It had lurched forward upon impact, thrusting him and Anna upwards. She, thankfully, had been spared the injury.

"Yeah, so..." Anna shifts in her seat, thinks about what to ask. She sees her sister lean her head at the steering wheel. 

She exchanges a look with Kristoff who, in return, shrugs his shoulders. "Where are we? What's the plan? Do we have weapons or anything like that? Because I could totally take on any meanies with my Kendo skills", Elsa rolls her eyes at this, "Are we kicking Westergaard ass today or-"

"Whoa there,", Kristoff laughs, "we don't even know what heck is going on. And don't you mean, when are we." 

A few moments pass in silence when it gets too quiet in the car. So quiet that they can hear Elsa's breathing. Which, alarmingly, seems to be upping its pace again.

Finally, Kristoff breaks the silence. "Er. Are you okay, Els?"

"Just...give me a minute," Elsa answers. Her palms meet her face and she heaves a deep sigh. 

"What's wrong?" Anna asks. Kristoff knits his brow and frowns.

"I'm just...tired," Elsa answers, her voice petering out. She turns at Anna and Kristoff and allows a weak smile to form on her lips which Anna assumes is supposed to reassure them that she's "fine".

"What-" Elsa turns to Anna and Kristoff. "..you two look like you've seen a ghost," the last word trails off when Elsa says it, trying as she does to suppress the yawn.

"Uhm, well, to be honest sis," Anna bites her lip, "with your complexion, not..not that it's bad necessarily, but like, it's..you're paler to begin with, I mean, compared to me-I'm like, practically tan and..well, you kind of look like a ghost right now?" 

"You try building, calibrating, and then landing this infernal machine on 4 hours of sleep", Elsa snaps, her jaw hardening. "And that was 2 hours BC - before coffee". She softens after a few moments pass, closing her eyes and covering face. "I'm sorry, I haven't really been sleeping well..all this caffeine probably isn't helping." 

Anna spots the thermos sitting on the cup holder. Elsa could probably be hooked up with a caffeine drip and it wouldn’t be much of a difference compared to what she was habitually consuming. 

"Hey," Anna says softly, "it's okay. Just..." Anna narrows her eyes, remembering how secretive her older sister had been when she'd gone on a solo trip to God-knows-whereistan, then asks, "what  have  you been up to on the trip you took?" 

"Right, so..." Elsa pauses. "Where do I even begin?"

* * *

It takes a few minutes for Anna to let it all sink in, whatever Elsa’s saying, but when it does, she’s antsy to get out of the car regardless. 

“Okay,” Anna says slowly, “hold on just a second here. Let me just get this straight. So you go off to make a deal with some really, really shady people so you can get some power for this thing, then you go several years into the future-”

“Two decades, in fact,” Elsa corrects. 

“-And it’s not my horrible, no good ex we should actually be worried about, but my-excuse me, our,” she nods to Kristoff, “horrible, no good kids we should be worried about.”

“When you put it that way…” Elsa starts.

But it’s Kristoff’s turn to be exasperated. “So then why did you tell us we needed fix the whatever it is that Mayor Hans is doing?” 

Elsa sighs. “I’m...not done.”

“Oh.”

“We’ll...take care of that part later.”

“Elsa!” Anna almost shouts, “We need to know now.” She would totally put her foot down if they were ever to get out of the damn car.

“Can we get out of here, first? My legs are starting to cramp.” Kristoff doesn’t wait for either of them to answer before he reaches for the door, only to stop and realize that he doesn’t know where to put his hand.

Elsa notices, though, because the doors swing up seemingly of their own accord.

Anna steps out after Kristoff, who shakes his legs a bit when he stands up.  

“Oh thank god.” He sags in relief. “My legs were starting to kill me there..”

"So, this is the future, huh?" Anna narrows her eyes, peering at thewalls around.  "It doesn't really look very different...are you sure we made it? I mean," she glances around, "where are the flying cars? Where are the hoverboards? We have drones in our time, too."

"Or the cyborgs," Kristoff adds, doing a little wave with his hands. "You sure we made it to that date, Elsa?" he points at the dashboard in the DeLorean.

"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint both of you, but we aren't quite yet in a mixed-up, cyberpunk dystopia. At least, not in the way you might expect. And we’re also in an abandoned parking garage so..."

What the hell did she mean “not in the way you might expect”? Was it moreBrave New World than 1984? More Brazil than Blade Runner? No wait, she said the word cyberpunk. What did that mean anyway?

“I can’t believe our kids are such troublemakers, Kristoff,” Anna sighs. “Getting in with the wrong crowds? Especially with Hans’ kids? Even getting arrested? I mean, when I was a teenager, I was really well-behaved. I was practically a do-gooder.”

“Are you sure you’re talking about yourself and not your sister?” Kristoff smirks. “That’s not what Elsa’s told me. Rumor has it, you were always in the principal’s office when you were kids.

“Oh my god, first of all, that was one time.”

Kristoff cocks his eyebrow.

“Okay, so it happened a couple of times. I can’t help it if my inner Hulk comes out whenever somebody calls me ‘Chicken’ or when somebody tries to mess with my nerd sister”.

Kristoff shakes his head and laughs. “Alright, whatever you say...feisty pants.”

“Kristoff, I will have you know that my pants are not, in fact, feisty, and if they were,” she winks at him, “you’d know.”

“I’m just right over here, you know,” Elsa mutters. “Really didn’t need to know about that.” Elsa grabs a large duffel bag out from under the driver’s seat.

Anna rolls her eyes and is about to say something when she hears the duffel bag drop at her side.

“What’s in this thing,” she asks as she tries to lift the bag, “a dead body?”

“Hold on!”

Elsa pads back to the DeLorean, grabbing something out of the glove compartment. Anna sees a sliver of something flap in her sister’s hands as she practically sprints towards her and Kristoff. Her sister reaches for something in the pockets of her lab coat, takes out what looks like a really thin tablet, then taps intently on its screen.

“Kristoff, Anna, these are your kids.” She turns the tablet toward them and continues, “They’re twins.”

In the image: two glum-looking teenagers; a girl and a boy both with strawberry blonde hair. The girl’s arms were crossed and she looked like she wanted to destroy humanity.

Anna isn’t sure how to react at first. The kids in the image could have been her and Kristoff, but much younger.

But to know that they would be married and have kids together was the best part of all this. Except for the part where their daughter and son looked really miserable and vaguely disgusted at everything, but that was probably a teen phase. “Oh my god they...they look just like you and me, Kristoff!”

Judging by Kristoff’s open jaw and wide eyes, it doesn’t look like he knows what to say either. “No Anna they…” he shakes his head slightly, “they look like you.”

“What?” she responds, incredulous at the notion. “That’s? No-that’s ridic-Elsa, tell him,” she pleads.

“Well, Anna, what can I say? Your influence is really strong….” is all Elsa can come up with. “Genetics and--ahem, but enough distractions,” Elsa huffs, straightens her posture. She taps at her watch. “Okay, looks like we should still be on time.”

“On time? But if you can travel time…” Kristoff questions.

Elsa ignores him and unzips the bag, taking out what looks like a puffy red jacket with grey sleeves, a ridiculously multicolored mess of a baseball cap, and some shoes. Seriously, it looked like somebody had killed a unicorn and dipped it in rainbow unicorn blood.

“You’ll need a disguise.” She hands Anna what apparently will comprise her disguise. She and Kristoff exchange looks.

“So you want me to wear...these things and do what exactly?”

“Oh huh,” Elsa pauses, then brightens up. “Ah, let me show you.” She takes out the tablet again from her pocket, and pulls up a map on the screen. “This diner is where Jeanne, your daughter, will be meeting-”

“-Westergaard spawn,” Anna shudders. “Wait, is that Tiana’s Diner?”

“Right. That’s where she’ll be meeting with Lars and his gang. You’ll need to be careful, since he’s muscled up with some ‘roids and his crew isn’t exactly weak, either.”

“..’roids?” Kristoff makes a face. “You mean, steroids?”

“Oh no, these are quite a bit more potent.”

“Oh man, so no punching him, then?”

“No punching if you can avoid it, Anna. Please.”

Anna groans.

“He’ll make an offer you can’t refuse, but you have to deny him, okay? It’s not exactly easy to get the mayor’s son in trouble.”

“Fine,” even if he was Westergaard’s son. “But I do have to wear these things don’t I?”

“Yes. The jacket’s actually pretty cool, er, literally. It automates drying through a process that....uh anyway. Let’s get on with it.”

Anna puts on the jacket and hat. She takes off her shoes, and puts on the swanky ones that Elsa’s handed her. She’s about to pull the straps together when they slip from her and join themselves.

“Neat!” Kristoff remarks.

Anna wonders if she can sneak them back to their own time.

“So do I need a disguise?”

As if to answer, Elsa pulls out a not-quite believable beard and a bowler hat.  That looked like they were bought from the dollar store. Or maybe it was the ten dollar store now. Inflation or whatever.

“These are state of the art.”

Kristoff accepts the beard and the hat, glares down at the paltry disguise and then glances back up to Elsa. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Elsa nods. “Bowler hats and beards are all the rage with the youth.”

She turns away and starts walking away before Kristoff can make any further protest. He sighs and rolls his eyes, putting on the hat and the fake beard.

Anna grabs her sister’s shoulder. “Wait, shouldn’t you have a disguise, too?”

“Ah, right!”

Anna shakes her head; her sister can be so absent-minded sometimes. Although, today, it seems, she’s a little more than loopy.

Elsa runs back to the DeLorean. The doors swing down, and she emerges with...blue hair, and the weird, wraparound glasses back on.

Suddenly, Anna wasn’t so sure her sister knew what a disguise was. 

“And before you ask, nobody will recognize me in these,” Elsa declares.

Right.

* * *

It’s hard for both Kristoff and Anna to keep apace with Elsa, she’s walking so fast. 

“So, what’s the deal with Hans then?” Anna asks. “This isn’t just about our kids, is it?”

Elsa either can’t or doesn’t want to hear, she doesn’t turn back, so Anna just follows begrudgingly.

And then, out of nowhere, breaking the silence that falls over them as they walk, Elsa says, "Where we're going, we don't need steering wheels, really." She smiles proudly.

"Ohhh-kay, then, whatever you say, sis," Anna looks at her with some suspicion.

"You'll see what I mean soon enough."

At first, Arendelle seems awfully quiet. Then the buildings emerge in view. They can start to hear random chatter and see masses of neon.  People wear some interesting outfits in the year 2035, that was for sure.

“I thought this was the future, not an acid-trip version of 1986,” Kristoff mutters.

Anna snorts.

As ridiculous as Elsa looked at the moment, she was far from the most outlandish in terms of ‘fashion’ compared to everyone else.

There are passersby in shades of neon that are alarmingly luminescent, people in skirts that flare at the ends like silver, green, pink and yellow lampshades. Leggings fashioned out of godknowswhat.

Anna watches each car that passes them, trying to figure out if there really was anything startlingly different from what she'd seen in her time. So far, the only real difference she'd noticed was that the silhouette of the cars were sleeker versions of the Priuses and the Ford Focuses of her time.  The buses didn’t change at all.

"Whoa! No one here seems to be paying attention to the road." Leave it to Kristoff to be the one to notice first. “Wait a minute, nobody’s touching the steering wheel! What the-they don’t have any steering wheels!”

"They don't need to," Elsa says with a smirk. 

She turns to her watch and makes a few taps.

In a few seconds, a driverless car pulls up beside the trio.

“That’s insane!” Kristoff’s eye widens as he looks into the car, “there’s really no need for a driver?”

“Nope!” Elsa responds rather triumphantly. “The software that drives it-”

“Okay, my dear nerd sis, let’s get to it, shall we?” Anna can’t help but laugh as she nudges for Elsa to get into the car.

Anna takes her own seat after Kristoff and Elsa take theirs. She sits across from them, waiting for the belt to fasten itself. 

Yup, any second now.

They both give her a weird look. 

“Anna, they’re not automated in this model. The belts, I mean.”

“Oh.”

A few seconds after she buckles up, the car starts to slide forward slowly. After a minute or two, the car cruises smoothly.

“This is seriously so frigging sweet! I mean look at the way the seats have been molded,” apparently, Kristoff could barely contain his excitement. He strokes the armrest. “I mean, shit.”

Elsa puts her hand in front of her mouth to giggle. 

Anna can’t help but laugh.

Then they all double over in laughter.

“You are such a dork, Kris.”

What did this remind Anna of? It’s like riding a train, only with no conductors, and the cars aren’t at all connected together. And no rails, either. 

The car stops just beside the Diner.

“Alright, here we go.”

 


End file.
